


Muggle Washing-Up

by aviciousunicycle



Series: Happily Ever After [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic, Engagement, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 02:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aviciousunicycle/pseuds/aviciousunicycle
Summary: Shortly after their engagement, Dora and Remus are invited round to her parents' for tea. Remus volunteers to clean up afterwards, but he does so in a way that makes his fiancee rather curious.





	Muggle Washing-Up

**Author's Note:**

> This is in the canon universe of Happily Ever After, but, hey, it could also be just in regular, actual, honest-to-god canon.   
> It's mostly pre-Deathly Hallows Remadora/Ronks fluff.

Remus volunteered to wash up after tea and, while Ted and Andromeda retired to the lounge, Dora followed him into the kitchen.   
She stacked dishes on the counter while Remus filled the sink basin with water; then she turned and walked out of the room. He sorted the dishes, added washing-up liquid to the water in the sink, and conjured a flannel. Dunking the first dish into the sudsy water, Remus heard the kitchen door open again, but didn’t see anyone. Then again, he didn’t need to see anyone to know who was behind him.   
“If you’re going to stand there, the least you could do is dry some dishes,” Remus said, conjuring a towel over the top of her head.   
Dora laughed and walked over to lean against the counter beside him. For a bit, she simply watched her fiance scrubbing plates, waiting for him to rinse away the suds. Then she spoke, “Why do you do it this way? Why not just scourgify it like any other wizard?”

Remus made a bit of a show of looking at his watch before tutting at her and said, “Why only an hour ago you were raving to your father that I was ‘unlike any other wizard’ you’d met. Bit concerning that your memory is already beginning to go, especially at your age.”   
She rolled her eyes, took a rinsed dish from him and said, “You’re deflecting.”   
Looking into the water and scrubbing a teacup with a bit more vigor than it needed, Remus said, “You can read me far too easily.”   
“Remus, I am  _ an auror _ ,” she said as she put the now dry plate into the dresser, “not to mention  _ your fiancee _ .”   
“Right then, that is true.”   
“So answer my question.”   
“Which was?”   
Dora rolled her eyes again and let out a sigh, “Why do you wash up like this, you know, the Muggle way?”   
“Well,” he began, “I suppose it’s because my mother was a Muggle.” Remus took a moment and looked into the foamy sink before he continued, “Even after the…incident…Dad worked a lot. He was often out of the house. That’s how he kept us in a house and fed, you see, he was something of a…consultant. If someone was having an exceptionally difficult time with a boggart or pixies, doxies, gnomes, what have you, they could owl my dad and he’d go in and take care of the infestation. Rather like a Muggle, ah, what’s the word? Exterminator, I believe. Anyway, he’d be off for a while in Cornwall or Wales or wherever he’d been called and it would just be Mum and myself at home. So, she’d cook for me and clean up, in the way that Muggles do both. Eventually she started teaching me to cook the only way she knew how, with a hob and cooker and stirring things by hand. That meant I also helped with washing up, you know, using washing-up liquid and flannels and my own bare hands.”   
Remus looked up and saw Tonks nod at him, obviously (and surprisingly) interested in what he was telling her.    
Resting his hands on the edge of the sink, Remus continued, “It’s probably rather silly, especially for a grown man, but…washing up in the Muggle way makes me feel close to my mother. Especially now she’s gone. It’s nice to just take a moment every now and then, slow down, occupy myself with something menial, and just…remember Mum.”   
Remus felt Dora’s hand cover his and he looked up to see her smiling at him. “I don’t think that’s silly at all, Remus,” she said.   
“You don’t?”   
“Not at all.”   
“No, it’s…well…I don’t know if I’ll look at washing up the same way again,” she said, looking out the window above the sink into the purplish light of evening.   
Remus nodded and looked to see that they had washed all of the dishes, that everything was put away, emptied the sink of water, vanished her towel and his flannel, and stepped back from the sink.   
Before he could get too far away, Dora caught his sleeve and tugged him back toward her. She was looking into his eyes with hers that were dark and sparkling and absolutely breathtaking. “Thank you for letting me spend time with you and your mother,” she said sincerely.   
Remus pulled away from her grip on his sleeve and took her hand instead and gave it a small squeeze. “She would have loved you,” Remus spoke, barely above a whisper.


End file.
